It strips Astarion to the marrow in an instant, unintentionally on either end of their array. Has him tight-lipped around the flexion catch of his softly clenched jaw, dry heat bubbling in his nose, swimming angrily around the backs of his eyes. He wasn't ready for it. For the heavy lay of sentiment like that, one foot wedged in past and present.
He feels like a bloody fumarole.
Ashamed even in absolute privacy— with the only person he'd ever trust with secrets this fragile to begin with— and the sheer absurdity of that comprehension somehow makes it worse. The words I'm glad you were happy having already hooked hard under fractured ribs, leaving him unguarded for a promise so sweet it scalds his tongue. His throat. His fingers. He doesn't know why.
(He should be warm. He should be kindled, burning from the inside out with that feeling of appeasement always shared to know his only lover understands. Not this. This wet, sick knot of rote taxation, upset at the promise that Leto heard some half-muttered story about a spoiled magistrate while his family and their hollow stomachs waited in the wings to play their written part, and offered, still— )]
no subject
It strips Astarion to the marrow in an instant, unintentionally on either end of their array. Has him tight-lipped around the flexion catch of his softly clenched jaw, dry heat bubbling in his nose, swimming angrily around the backs of his eyes. He wasn't ready for it. For the heavy lay of sentiment like that, one foot wedged in past and present.
He feels like a bloody fumarole.
Ashamed even in absolute privacy— with the only person he'd ever trust with secrets this fragile to begin with— and the sheer absurdity of that comprehension somehow makes it worse. The words I'm glad you were happy having already hooked hard under fractured ribs, leaving him unguarded for a promise so sweet it scalds his tongue. His throat. His fingers. He doesn't know why.
(He should be warm. He should be kindled, burning from the inside out with that feeling of appeasement always shared to know his only lover understands. Not this. This wet, sick knot of rote taxation, upset at the promise that Leto heard some half-muttered story about a spoiled magistrate while his family and their hollow stomachs waited in the wings to play their written part, and offered, still— )]
Don't—
[Astarion cuts hotly.]
Don't. Say that.